


let us share what we see

by Aramley



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: "Do you ever think about getting old?"
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 34
Kudos: 189





	let us share what we see

"Do you ever think about getting old?" Joe says, into the nape of Nicky’s neck.

Nicky squeezes Joe's arm where it's draped in the old familiar way across his waist. He says, sleepily, "About Andy?"

"About us," Joe says, feeling a little selfish as he does, like it’s really not the time for their private fears. Still, this fate is coming towards them as surely as it was coming towards Andy, and if, God-willing, they're so lucky as to lose their immortality in some survivable way - he doesn’t know how to think about it, only lately he can't stop thinking about it, either.

Nicky moves under Joe's arm, shifting awkwardly onto his other side so he and Joe are chest to chest, close as heartbeats.

"Yes, I've thought about it," he says, looking soft and serious in the dim light.

"Yes?" Joe smoothes his hand down the line of Nicky's back as if he's the one in need of comfort. "What do you think about?"

"Hm." Nicky raises himself up on one elbow, cheek propped in his hand, and nudges Joe to lie on his back so that Nicky can give him a long, considering look. He smiles and says, "I think about how your hair will go grey."

Joe laughs in spite of himself. "Is that what you think about?"

"Here," Nicky says, fingertips brushing the curls at Joe's right temple, "and here," mirroring the touch with a kiss against the left.

"Just there?" Joe teases. "That's not so bad."

"There first. And silver threads in your beard, like a scholar," Nicky says, leaning in to kiss the corner of Joe's smile, ducking back when Joe tries to catch his mouth. "You'll look very distinguished."

"Distinguished, I like that," Joe says, warming to this now, some of the tension in him unravelling under Nicky's gentleness. "What else?"

"Hm." Nicky cups Joe's face with his free hand, thumb resting gently just at the outer curve of his eye. "Little wrinkles here."

"I have those already," Joe says.

"Deeper than that. No, no, deeper," Nicky says, as Joe's smile widens by degrees. "Deep enough that people know just by seeing them that you laugh easily and well; so that they know the goodness of your heart."

"Nicky," Joe says and cups the back of Nicky's neck in lieu of words, which for once have abandoned him.

"Grey here, too," says Nicky, moving down Joe's body to kiss the scattering of hair across his chest. Joe smoothes his fingers up through Nicky's hair.

"What about this?" he says, ruffling the short, fine strands. “Grey, to match?”

"If I am lucky," Nicky says. He props his chin over Joe's heart and says with a mock-tragic air, "I think it's time I confess to you that my father was a bald man."

Joe laughs again and Nicky lays his cheek flat to Joe's chest, as if chasing the sound right back to its source.

"I would still love you, even if you were bald," Joe says, with his palm shaped to the curve of Nicky's head. He imagines how it might look, how it might sharpen all the bones of Nicky's face.

"That's fortunate for me," Nicky says, with a wry twist of his mouth. He moves lower, though the bed's not really big enough for it and now his bare calves are half out in the air, kicked up with an innocence otherwise at odds with the picture he makes: his broad shoulders braced over Joe's body, his long back pale in the moonlight, both of them just in boxers and the sheets rucked at the foot of the bed. Now Joe's body is starting to get interested - who wouldn't, with Nicky held snug between their thighs?

"Grey down there?" he says, half-hopeful, and Nicky huffs warm against Joe's skin but doesn't make it that far, stopping instead just at Joe's naval.

"You'll be soft here," he says, dropping a kiss against Joe's belly, "from all the good living we'll do."

"Good living, huh," Joe says. "Are you planning to fatten me up?"

"Why not? I'll finally have time to perfect my baking."

"God help me," Joe says, and paws at Nicky's shoulders to bring him back up until he's covered over with the warm, well-loved stretch of him, though Nicky considerately allows him space to breathe by bracing a little of his weight on his forearms. Joe smiles up at him. "And where will we do all this good living you have planned for us?"

"Somewhere warm," Nicky says. He strokes Joe's hair back from his forehead, long fingers combing gently through the curls. "Somewhere bright. Somewhere slow.”

"Malta?"

"Maybe Malta," Nicky agrees. "Somewhere close to the sea, because the swimming will be good for your hip."

"What's wrong with my hip?"

"It just gets a little bit stiff sometimes, that's all," says Nicky, and kisses Joe’s forehead as if in consolation for this fictive hip of his. "I'll buy you a cane. With a silver top."

"I'll show you where you can put it," Joe warns, pinching Nicky's side. "Why my hip, not yours?"

"You’re older, as you have often reminded me,” says Nicky. "If you're going to hold those three years over me for nine hundred you should be prepared to pay for them."

Joe hums, not conceding the fairness of this, though he strokes Nicky's pinched side by way of a half-apology. "And what will we do, then, when we're not swimming for the sake of my old bones?"

"Whatever we like," Nicky says, mouth curved lightly in a smile. "We will plant a garden and watch it grow. We'll get a dog. We'll take long walks and find good views for you to sketch. We'll sit in bars with the old men and complain about politics and shout at football matches. We will play chess in the park and you’ll never let me win. Maybe we'll take up bocci so I that I might even the score. We'll have Nile and Booker to stay and make up outrageous stories to tell her and make him do all the odd jobs that we're too old for anymore. We'll get armchairs and nap in them in the afternoons and pretend that we don't. We'll be very happy."

Nicky's voice is soft with easy good humour, but each little thought feels to Joe like a bead worn smooth and beautiful with much reverent handling. 

Joe frames Nicky's face in his hands. "You do think about this, Nicolo?"

"Mm. Just fancies. Daydreams. Hopes, maybe." Nicky turns his head and kisses Joe's palms in turn, then lets Joe pull him in to be kissed properly at last. His mouth is warm and sweet and Joe feels cracked open, tender with the ancient and familiar ache of loving so much, of knowing himself so beloved. 

Joe drags Nicky closer, wanting to be pinned safely under the weight of him, until he’s gasping for air and Nicky laughs against his open mouth and tips sideways. Joe makes a noise of protest and follows.

“Doesn’t sound so bad, when you put it like that,” he says, pressing close and closer still until they’re twined together, indivisible.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you just need to write some abject fluff. Title (and inspo) from the song [Grow Old with Me](https://youtu.be/5rgHYP0dD_4) (Tom Odell).


End file.
